THE BOY – Mainstream horror in which a babysitter is hired by a rich couple to look after their 'kid', a porcelain doll. Scenes of Lauren Cohan coming to grips with the fact she's supposed to care for an inanimate object and gradually being seduced into the role are quite interesting, and it's well put together from start to finish. The 'finish' in question is unfortunately a bit wack in some ways, as the film takes a detour away from the psychological / supernatural and into sort-of slasher territory. Fine, but that could all have been amped up a bit more, made a bit more sickly given the rich couple's ultimate designs. But it's just not that kind of movie. As it stands, it's vaguelly intriguing with a few creepy bits and some nice atmosphere, and manages reasonably well to entertain.
GREEN ROOM – From the maker of 'Blue Ruin'. 'Green Room' carries forward that film's approach, which basically involves giving genre filmmaking a semi art-house spin, so really 'Green Room' does for siege movies what 'Blue Ruin' did for the humble revenge flick. Here we have some broke punks who end up playing a gig at some kind of neo-nazi hang-out on the edge of town. The band start out by blasting the DK's 'Nazi Punks F*ck Off' at a bunch of skins, but it goes from bad to worse for them when they stumble upon a murder scene and find that head fascist Patrick Stewart has them trapped back stage. A very good movie which has one foot in action thriller territory but plays out more like a certain kind of American indie flick, with a sort of cryptic, languid feel to it even when the blood starts to spurt. Recommended.
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